I had promised Sri Nageswaran that I would pen my thoughts on the interactive event after watching the DVDs.
I finally have, so I am writing a few words.
To top it all off, I had the good fortune of interacting with the maestro himself. This essay, is not a review of the video. I would encourage all of you to watch it; it is beautifully produced, mixed and edited. These are just some of my thoughts on the genius of Trichy Sankaran (TS), anchored around the context of this video.
I would like to express my strongest words of appreciation to Sri VKV and Nageswaran for all their hard work in making this available to the global rasika community. And thanks to all those that made the event possible…
The maestro at home.
North York, Toronto. (Just a few blocks from York University.)
Sri Sankaran had asked me to come to his house on a Saturday afternoon in what turned out to be a lovely early spring day in Toronto. Dr Mohan Kumar, TS’s long term disciple opened the door. Sri Sankaran and his family were on the same flight going to India from Toronto a few months ago, both of us headed for the music season. We exchanged our round of niceties, spoke about long distance flight travel and we sat down in his living room with some wonderful south Indian coffee and fresh mulLu muruKku.
As a child in the 1970s, I first heard the name Trichy Sankaran, from my grandfather Kalpathi Ramanathan. He told me about this wizard that lived in Canada, one of the best accompanists that he had heard in his lifetime. I had never heard of Toronto or Canada or New York or London for that matter, but this only piqued my interest in this mythic personality named Sankaran. This comment from my grandfather is special for a couple of reasons.
First, my grandfather is from the “other” school. He was also very close in age to his guru, Palghat Mani Iyer. (Here is a little side story that describes their early musical relationship:
http://www.palghatmaniiyer.org/1_27_V-S-Mani.html; must read for anyone with an interest in how music was taught in the 1920s by PMI).
Second, my grandfather was at least 30 + years senior to Sri Sankaran. Sri Kalpathi Ramanathan had accompanied Alathur Bros in 1938-39 at their very first music academy concert. Through the ‘40s he played with MSS, DKP and NCV. In the 1950s he became a staff artiste at All India Radio and here he accompanied pretty much every artiste who chose to sing into the can. The airwaves of AkashvAni, the commercial-free golden days. So, for him, a very senior vidwan, to speak so highly of Sankaran was incredible and I would dare say, unprecedented.
TS recalled his association with my grandfather and the first time that he had met him. It was in the 1950s at Krishna Gana Sabha, the very first Lalgudi solo concert in history. LGJ was to be accompanied by Pazhani and a very young Sankaran, a double mridangam affair. PMI was in attendance. Despite the heavy crowds and the stress of performing with his guru and in front of PMI, TS noticed that my grandfather had arrived in the audience. Although people were trying to seat him in the first row, Kalpathi refused to sit next to his guru as a sign of respect (he was used to only sitting on the floor when his guru was on a chair) and moved to the second row of cane chairs. Krishna Gana Sabha probably uses the same cane chairs they had in this period, although the venue might not have been on Griffiths road (now Maharajapuram Santhanam Salai) at the time. As soon as TS recalled this event, I felt terrible about sitting in the couch facing him, so I took for the earliest opportunity to gracefully seat myself on the floor.
Fast forward to Dec 21, 1980. The first concert of TS that I remember attending. My parents took me to a huge number of kutcheris in the 70s/early 80s, but somehow this is the one I remember best.
I was dying to see Sri Sankaran perform in the season, and my father managed to get Lalgudi sir to take us to a kutcheri at the academy. The hall was packed and Lalgudi sir had us ushered and seated in the press booth (not sure if it exists now) and I had a view of Sri Sankaran’s valanthalai from a distance of < 10ft. An equivalent seat at the Carnegie Hall would be worth my entire year’s salary.
The concert was spectacular. The combination of SSI-LGJ-TS was perhaps one of the most special in the history of modern Carnatic music. The music flowed that day was like the monsoon rain. SSI prodded, coaxed, teased and egged TS on. Of course, Lalgudi sir stole the show with his razor sharp responses and brilliant control over talam. The tani was, in classic TS style, breathtaking.
After the concert, Lalgudi sir introduced me to TS and said: this little boy wants to say something to you. I developed a nervous stutter and in my schoolboy exuberance I shook the maestro’s hand and managed to utter one word: “Brilliant”, a word I had just learned in school. TS, patted my shoulder and said, “how sweet of you”, an expression that he still uses today when he receives a compliment. In the video of the interactive session with rasikas.org, he used the same expression, with even the same facial gestures when Sri V. Subrahmaniam complimented him on his glorious career of accompanying the who’s who of the Carnatic world.
I have seen TS perform for 30+ years since that day. In Chennai, in Connecticut (my home for several years when I was in graduate school), in Cleveland and now Toronto. TS represents to me the very best that tradition, sAdhana and sheer hard work can do to the refinement of a skill. His open mind and the ability to see beauty in everything, including our conversation is what distinguishes him from most masters in this field. It is the same beauty that he found in the style of the “other” school; he openly spoke of his admiration of PMI and especially Sri Palghat Raghu. He owes his success to what he calls his two eyes, his guru and Sri Mani Iyer. However, he felt very strongly that experimenting with other styles, in the absence of a certain foundation can be dangerous to the development of the art.
TS has trained numerous American, Canadian and European musicians and many of them have gone on to do amazing things; just not visible to the Carnatic world. In the video, Sri Easwaran talks about how training such a diverse range of people requires unbelievable amounts of patience. It is this patience and a patent love for teaching that has kept TS going in the west, far away from his comfort zone in the Chennai music world.
Just an hour with him is enough to see why he is an award-winning lecturer/teacher. He is a recipient of the OCUFA teaching award, given to a handful of people in Ontario. I teach in the Ontario University system and I have served on committees that nominate these teaching heroes. Only the very best teachers I have encountered in my life have received this award. TS brings out the best of everything that he has learned from gurukulavasam and adapts it to train students with virtually no background in nadai, kanakku or kArvais. He has also helped with organizing the research careers of people like David Nelson (student of T Ranganathan) who put together an amazing thesis on five different styles of mridangam playing at UMass. I think Nick might have written a demo about David’s lec-dem at the academy.
Now, the video:
The video (available for download from this thread) captures every aspect of TS’s personality. Every little thing I noticed about his amazing personality in person, comes through in the video. His nascent sense of humor, his devotion to his guru, his respect for SSI, PMI and Lalgudi sir, his dedication to the art and propagating it in the west are all facets that shine through the screen and beam right at you in the video.
There are three parts to it. The first shows the gathering at Sastri hall in February with speeches by VV Sundaram and a video documentary on TS that was prepared when he received his honorary doctorate in Victoria, BC. There is a beautiful clip of TS and Harishankar (another legend) accompanying SSI/TNK performing paTTi viDuva rAdu in manjari. If you surf youtube for Carnatic videos like I do, you have probably already seen this clip.
But there is another gem: A rare recording of TS accompanying Higgins (with whom he started the Carnatic music dept in Toronto) singing swarams in Hamsadwani. TS is his usual, boisterous self with his child-like enthusiasm (to use Uday’s words) in accompanying both these musicians from completely different styles/modes of performance.
Following this in the video, TS spends a good bit of time talking about his association with his guru. It is full of wonderful anecdotes about his guru’s fondness for him, his arangetram playing for Alathur bros, the korvai that Pillai-vAL taught him at the beach and other stories about this golden period from 1955-1970.
A lovely interaction follows, where Sri V Subrahmaniam talks about SSI’s association with TS. Of course, the moment where VS asked him about why he left India at the peak of his career is an important one. TS answered the question very gracefully; and I, for one, am glad that he chose to move to the West. I don’t think the concert circuit has been impoverished by his absence; in fact his season concerts are just as sought after today as they were in 1969.
Karaikudi Subramaniam, another Connecticut PhD, spoke about his association with TS. For those of you that like collecting good music, there is a wonderful commercial release called SunAdA where Sri KS plays the veena to TS’s accompaniment. This is a lesson on how to accompany for the veenai. They way TS has embellished kritis like Sarasa sAma dAna or mayatita swaroopini is simply superb. KS spoke of TS’s accompanying style and he attributed his greatness to his deep listening and understanding of the grammar of both vocal and instrumental Carnatic music. The ability to imbibe the great qualities of senior vidwans (a very Lalgudi quality he notes) is also seen in the performances of TS.
Possibly the best part of the video was the interaction of Sri Mannargudi Easwaran with TS. Easwaran sir was making requests for the maestro like a “fan” requesting hit songs from a star. TS entertained every one of his requests. I saw the depth of the thoppi sowkyam and korvai amaippus as orchestrated by TS extemporaneously. There are so many worthwhile pieces written by people much smarter than I about the Pazhani school, the thoppi, the nadai development, the sound of the thom etc. (KS Kalidas has written quite extensively about the technical aspects of this for those interested), so I won't go into the details here.
But what is unusually special about the video is the way Sri MAE got answers out of Sankaran sir. So, Semmu, Rajumds, Uday, Nick and others who actually attended the event, I can only see what the live experience must have been like.
That said, the video is just delightful. For those of us that missed the Sastri Hall event, it is an opportunity to tap into and cross paths with the genius of TS. TS my hero.
********
I left the TS household that afternoon with a smile that I could not hide. Driving away with the feeling that I briefly connected to a man, who represents a tradition that goes back to Dakshinamoorthy Pillai and Mamundia Pillai. It is a tiny fabric that takes us back in time to days of the invention of the kanjira, adaptation of tavil rhythms to mainstream accompaniment. A connection to an era when these giants roamed the earth…
endarO mahAnubhAvulu
(Please download the video. It will make Nageswaran very happy, even if you don’t do it not for the reasons I have given you here.)
